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EJToday: Top Headlines

EJToday is SEJ's selection of new and outstanding stories on environmental topics in print and on the air, updated every weekday. SEJ also offers a free e-mailed digest of the day's EJToday postings, called SEJ-beat. SEJ members are subscribed automatically, but may opt out here. Non-members may subscribe here. EJToday is also available via RSS feed. Please see Editorial Guidelines for EJToday content.

"Though much maligned for its invasion into the air Utahns breathe, carbon is an element that is everywhere, throughout the earth and in all living creatures. In the human body, it’s the second most abundant element, right after oxygen. And in the heart of Utah’s Carbon County, carbon—the primary stuff of coal—is the lifeblood of the residents and the hardscrabble communities formed to mine the black gold that has powered the world for generations."

"In the heart of Texas' mineral-rich Eagle Ford Shale, freshwater isn't the only precious resource for both oil companies and local communities. Brackish groundwater aquifers are also becoming increasingly valuable — as potential drinking water supplies, and also as locations for disposing wastewater from drilling and hydraulic fracturing."

"A Japanese court ruled against allowing the restart of a nuclear power plant west of Tokyo on Wednesday, its operator said, a rare case in which anti-nuclear plaintiffs have successfully won a ruling to shut down reactors."

"When a mile-wide tornado roared through Joplin, Mo., it killed 158 people and injured thousands. And it also kicked up toxic remnants from the city’s industrial past that are still haunting its residents on the third anniversary of the disaster."

"The government has no way of fully knowing which U.S. chemical facilities stock ammonium nitrate, the substance that exploded last year at a Texas fertilizer plant and killed 14 people, congressional investigators say. Outdated federal policies, poor information sharing with states and a raft of industry exemptions point to scant federal oversight, says a new report obtained by The Associated Press."

"When 39,000 tons of coal ash spilled into North Carolina's Dan River in February, it grabbed national headlines and raised the ire of environmentalists. But by sheer numbers, the 14 coal ash ponds spread across North Carolina pale in comparison to the nearly 3,000 various waste sites across the state. That includes decommissioned industrial facilities, abandoned dry cleaners and old landfills."